This ethnographic study explores how the khushboo (fragrance) of music functions as a central mechanism in the musical enculturation of Namdhari Sikh children in the UK, specifically in the diasporic communities of Birmingham and East London. Using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, the research examines how various environmental factors such as family, local community, transnational ties, and parental biographies shape the children’s musical development.

A key component of this process is the languaging around Namdhari music. The study argues that the language used to describe and engage with music, imbued with spiritual, emotional, and doctrinal significance actively influences the children’s connection to their heritage. Terms such as khushboo (fragrance), khushiya (joy), and rasa (emotion) create a semiotic framework that transforms music into a sacred and spiritual practice rather than a mere aesthetic experience. This languaging fosters affective attunement, deepening the children’s emotional bond to the music and its spiritual dimensions.

Additionally, the study examines the semiotics of Namdhari music, focusing on how elements such as lyrical themes, rhythmic patterns, and tonal qualities reinforce cultural continuity and emotional expression. Through interviews, participant observation, and analysis of intergenerational transmission, the research demonstrates how these semiotic practices preserve traditional music while enabling adaptation to hybrid identities in the diaspora.

Ultimately, this study highlights how language, semiotics, and music intersect to preserve and adapt Namdhari cultural heritage within diasporic communities.

Dissent in Hong Kong has been muted since the enforcement of new security laws following the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Protests in 2019. However, the voices of freedom still resound among Hong Kong migrants worldwide, and diasporic groups have continued to demonstrate for Hong Kong’s democratization. In 2019 alone, global rallies connected Hong Kong with 22 cities (June 12), 36 cities (August 17-18), and 65 cities (September 29) (Ho 2023). These transnational protests express a feeling of urgency, an intensified desire to protect Hong Kong’s freedom and maintain the Hongkonger identity (ibid.)—a sense of localism that constitutes a “political consciousness” (Hung 2022) that has motivated cross-generational migrant communities through their “emotional responses” (Ho 2023) to escalating authoritarianism. Diasporic rallies incorporating practices borrowed from earlier Hong Kong demonstrations, such as chanting banned slogans and singing protest songs, recreate the energies and affect of disappeared local protests. This growing transnational “affective solidarity” (Tang and Cheng 2021) toward Hong Kong localism has become a source of global Hong Kong identity through collective memories, musicking, ritualistic performance, and symbolic objects.

This paper argues that the “diasporic subjectivity” (Yip 2021) of the Hongkonger identity is articulated and strengthened in the collective public presence that performs (banned) vocal utterances and music in transnational protests and Tiananmen commemorative candlelight vigils. Focusing on the 2019–2025 protests and June 4 vigils in the northeastern US, this paper studies how musicking and symbolic objects build an emerging sense of collective affect and “long-distance nationalism” (Fong 2021).